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18 Mart 2012 Pazar

No Country

No Country for Old Men, adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-Prize winner novel, is plain, scary and brutishly violent. Though the title appears neither in the book nor in the movie, is part of the first line from William Butler Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium”:

THAT is no country for old men. The youngIn one another's arms, birds in the trees- Those dying generations - at their song,The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unageing intellect.

No Country for Old Men is a wild cat-and-mouse drama, with a purebred psychopath (Javier Bardem) at its center. Instead of an expected resolution, the movie turns into one man (Tommy Lee Jones) understanding himself and the new world. The film takes place in a small Texas border town in 1980. Sheriff Bell has ruled the land for years, as his Grandfather and father did without a gun yet the new kind of evil and brutality flow has seeped into the world-to his world and made it impossible for him to fight without the use of a gun. Llewelyn Moss, a welder and a Vietnam veteran who lives in a trailer with his devoted wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald) is an innocent common man. Through Llewelyn the themes of fate and circumstance, pessimism, nihilism, motifs of chance, free-will, & predestination, which are familiar territory for the Coen brothers in their earlier movies Blood Simpleand Fargo

is examined when he “comes across” a drug deal gone deadly and finds two million dollars which he is determined to keep for himself. But there is a problem: one of the most evil psychopaths that the white screen has ever seen tracks him down! Anton Chigurh using a pressurized weapon that’s used to murder cattle, keeps on his mission to return the money to its rightful owners to save his own life. Whereas the chilly sensation created by Chigurh is a sign of terror, it is also a symptom of delight. As the tension rises, the number of the murders begins to rise, confirming Sheriff’s inability to battle this new wave of modern brutality.

More attention should be paid to Anton Chigurh to make his mentality clear: Anton the killer lives under a simple discipline- if your “fate” brings you to see him then you’re destined to die just like how a coin comes to your possession. Thus he does not feel guilty, he thinks that it is destiny not him to put the blame on. The best he could do for you is an appeal to the destiny of the coin- a coin toss.

The movie is not a simple face-off between the good and the evil. It does not justify only one deed. It just tells you that things are complicated and interpenetrated.

“No Country” is unexpected not because of its abrupt end but because of its every minute, every little nimble shot and faultless sound design. What impresses me most, generally speaking about all kinds of art, is that the work of art should not say or show what feeling it aims to have on you but rather it should make you feel in the way. Instead of saying “the whole summer was so boring and dull”, it should bore you with its narration and it should establish such an atmosphere that you would hardly finish “the summer”. And “No Country” does it exceptionally good. Many modern films today use bombastic music or tatty “tricks” to create tension or to impress. The Coens, contrastingly, know how using little or no sound drums up a scene’s anxiety and tension level. It stretches your senses out but not with. The silence and the slowness make you feel “home” as if you are in the hotel room with Llewlyn watching tide from the closet and the only thing you hear except for your vigorous heart beats is the creak of floorboards and the beeping of a transponder. This silence awakens your senses. Your attention is absolutely absorbed and you do not want to image what is going to happen even if you know what will happen. Another astonishing scene appropriate as an example for the “silence technique” is towards the very end. After we witness the tension between Anton Chigurh and Mrs. Moss, everything seems ordinary, children are riding their bicycles, we are relieved, Chigurh crosses the road slowly when the green light is on and suddenly he is hit by a car. Thus your relieved nerves are suddenly tense again! This is perfect.

Upon watching the film you are not just struck by what you have just witnessed but also how faithful the film is to novel. Therefore, it does deserve the Academy Award for the Best Adapted Screenplay. Yet there are still some differences:

The book is clear about the end of the confrontation of Mrs. Moss & Anton but the film is. She also doesn't refuse to call heads or tails on his coin: She calls it incorrectly. The first hotel confrontation between Moss and Chigurh plays out very differently: In the book Llwelyn holds Anton to ransom at a gun point and then the tale of stalker vs. prey starts. A hitchhiker, a teenaged girl who Llewely befriends in a way in the novel doesn’t exist in the movie but the same impact is given the movie, too. There is a lot of Ed Tom Bell narration that isn’t in the film. For a film I think it was just enough of Bell’s thoughts and i believe it was cut on purpose.

What the film does better:The film is richer and less “desert” with more of an oppressed dread. And also without really changing anything, the movie stretches out some of the book's quick-sketch processes, turning them into little mysteries. At several points in both the book and film version, characters gather ordinary objects and use them step by step to a suprising end. McCarthy tends to spell it out in bare sentences while the Coen Brothers strech it out thus raising the ongoing question "What is he up to?" and emphasizing the innate cleverness and creativity of the two leads in particular.

What the book does better: Mostly, it's more thematically consistent. You hear more from Sheriff Bell who opens, ends and spaces out the book, making it more clearly about him and his conviction that America is falling apart, becoming the kind of place where fellows like him just don't belong anymore.

After he finishes telling his dreams to his wife, he says that “Then I woke up”. He awakens, he opens his eyes to reality and he knows that he cannot handle this bare brutality thus he realizes that there is no country for old man. See? The movie achieved what I mentioned: Without literally saying “there is no country for old man” it says that “there is no country for old man.”

The dreams have symbolic meanings, the sheriff had two dreams: First Dream: The sheriff lost the money and is accused by his father. Second dream: He follows his father to the warmth of the fire in the midst of a cold world. The former refers to the legacy that the sheriff received from his father - he was a lawman. The sheriff lost this heritage. In the beginning of the film, the sheriff marvels over lawmen who didn't wear guns. The meaning is that lawmen, even with guns, are rather impotent in the face of evil. These lawmen of the old days knew that a gun couldn't protect them - the sheriff realizes this when he's in the dark motel room with Anton.

The story is about a young man who has an affair with an older woman and the maturity which he attains from the experience, then he gets tired of her, becomes determined to marry her virginal daughter.

America was a country in chaos in a way by race riots and deaths of Martin Luther King and President Kennedy. This situation made them worried and disappointed about their future. Young people, in particular, grew feelings of alienation against the system and the society they were living in. Our character, Benjamin Braddock, is one of them; a recent college graduate who feels out of touch with the world and comes home with no idea about his future. He keeps delaying and hesitates to answer the questions in the party held for him and in stead he says “I’m a little bit worried about my future”. After that party Benjamin Braddock starts to have an affair with the wife of his father’s business partner, Mrs. Robinson. He was actually forced to have an affair by the seductions of her. He tried hard to end this wrong but she was always able to capture him. When he tires of this affair, he falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine, the only person who makes him feel “real.” After ruining the Robinson’s fake marriage and Elaine, Benjamin runs off with Elaine. She makes him real although he barely knows her, but he pursues her because she is what he needs: respectable, safe, ready to forgive him.

However, there are contradictions in the movie and also in the major character. He appears as a riot character but ends up with the exact girl his parents have picked out for him. Another one is that Hoffman's achievements in school are not credible in his basic manner of shyness. Last but not least, the intended commentary on materialistic society is the most effective theme.

I most notably want to insist on the regret he would feel and what he would say to us. He did not regret anything indeed yet I put myself in his shoes and reflected what I felt from his point of view. Bartleby seems to feel imprisoned in his life, and it is significant that he eventually dies in prison. He is trapped by his job as scrivener, which is one of the most triggering reasons of his indifference, and the emerging capitalist economy so much that maybe he is either unable or unwilling to explain the reason for his discontent. Perhaps Bartleby’s ability to think independently has been so damaged that he cannot even find the words to express his own desires. Through Bartleby, Melville seems to question the nature of human freedom. He not coincidentally, assures what Henry David Thoreau advocated in Civil Disobedience. According to him people must defend their rights but in a right way without guns or wars. Civil means “adhering to the norms of polite social intercourse” which indicates something like polite and orderly disobedience-unarmed- and Bartleby’s manner of conduct is a great example of the disobedience though he did not win literally.

World history has been dealing with the same problem since the very dawn of our kind’s appearance; notion of ‘the other’ and its aftermath on both sides. We have, as the master race of this planet, taken Earth for granted and used the Space around us as if it is the backyard garden where we dump our garbage. This self-righteous attitude is overtly visible in our everyday lives, from our family lives to politic interrelations of nations. Thus, we have not been able to resolve one serious problem we have carried from our caves to our houses equipped with the latest technology: gender discrimination. I believe, other types of discrimination can be brought into an end within time or with the collective attempt from both men and women; however, when it comes to gender and/or sex based discrimination, it requires a cross-cultural, international and even a supranational motion.

The terms, gender or sex discrimination, are used interchangeably, despite the fact that sex and gender do not have the same meaning; former refers to biological or anatomical identity as male or female, whereas the latter is a social construct of characteristics that are culturally associated with masculinity or femininity. Similarly, sexism is a term coined in mid-20th century, its definition is: “The belief that one sex (usually the male) is naturally superior to the other and should dominate most important areas of political, economic, and social life.”(1) Although the term is new, sexism can be traced back to ancient times, when women did not have the right to vote or to be a citizen, which is still seen in some parts of the world even today.

Throughout history of humans, there are only a few historical women figures whose names were written in the history books. For centuries, men held the upper position in almost every profession out of the domestic sphere which was claimed to be the place where a woman ought to be. This quickly reminds of a famous quotation of George Bernard Shaw:

If we have come to think that the nursery and the kitchen are the natural sphere of woman, we have done exactly as English children come to think that a cage is the natural sphere of a parrot—because they have never seen one anywhere else.

Ruth Rosen from the Department of History at the University of California Berkeley, has made use of this quotation in her essay from 1971, called Sexism in History or, Writing Women's History Is a Tricky Business. Rosen, simply argues that men, not only have ostracized women from professional life and some parts of social life but also they have excluded from the traditional history. Rosen claims in her essay, “traditional history has been most concerned with the re-creation of the elite intellectual military, economic and political powers that fashioned the course of events. .... [b]iographies of white male authors, soldiers, industrialists, and politicians have crowded the library shelves labeled as ‘history.’” Ruth Rosen simply argues that women have been made invisible both in history-making and the history-writing, and yet the historians of the modern era, are stuck between the prejudices of past and the stereotypes of the present (541, Rosen).

In this respect, equivalently, representation of gender roles in popular culture is nourished from these stereotypes and prejudices, or vice versa. The problem behind representation lies at the very nature of representation, because what people do and how they do depends upon how they see themselves and their world and this in turn depends upon the concepts- the windows from which they look. Everyone, every political or social group wants to be represented and every government claims to represent but in between we are troubled by the difference between fake and real representative institutions or people and the way representatives would be institutionalized. In my opinion there is no real representative government or group since the representative is chosen to make decision for his choosers that is (instead of!) representative’s duty is to reflect accurately the wishes and opinions of those he represents. Though we have problems with the “institution” of representation, we should and must respect the representation of each other. Wintdrop’s sermons are literal representation of god’s words. Wintdrop through the literal representation of divine deals with the role of the individual in society especially what he should do practically in this life?

Since the feminist movements of 1960s, movies, magazines, television shows and advertisements have been criticized by not necessarily by feminist activists but also by the new generations who do not or reject to possess and continue those cliché gender roles given to males and females. Disney cartoons have been on the target, especially because most of them feature a beautiful, young princess/woman who is waiting to be saved by a prince who usually is a rich, brave, strong white male (‘prince charming’) from a kingdom far away. The first examples that come to mind in this respect are Snow White, Rapunzel, Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and so on. In addition to this, as Marcia Lieberman also stresses in her essay ‘Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Disney film’: “The middle-aged women are evil, villainous, and sexual. .... These middle-aged women would include such characters as Cruella Deville (101 Dalmatians), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), and Wicked Queen (Snow White).” Comparably, most advertisements basically run on stereotypes, too. A recent dish-washing liquid was highly criticized as it showed two women, one using the promoted detergent and the other one who uses some other brand. While the former one is happy because she could catch up with her other duties such as home-cleaning and looking-after her children after a relatively ‘easier and more enjoyable’ dish-washing, the latter one was upset because she could not make enough time for her chores. MEDİZ (short for Women's Media Monitoring Group) as one of the most active NPOs in this field, have declared their manifest recently stating that women do not carry stain removers in their purses, do not sing and dance while they are doing chores or simply do not hug their detergents after every session of laundry/dish-washing. Similarly, Uçan Süpürge (Turkish for Flying Broom) serving as Women Communication and Research Association, organizes a festival every year in Ankara between 5 -12 May, running films directed by women or with a women theme. Also home to panels and conferences on gender discrimination and the representation of women characters in television shows in Turkey, Uçan Süpürge constitutes a very remarkable place for itself in the process of giving voice to women and de-gendering of Turkish media and culture.

A recent study, conducted by R. Ayhan Yilmaz from Selçuk University in 2007, entitled “Gender Roles in Advertisements: A Content Analysis of the Advertisements Published in Milliyet Newspaper between the Years, 1960 and 1990.” investigates “... how the gender roles related to women were presented in the advertisements published in print media between the years of 1960 and 1990” (Yılmaz, 143). Yılmaz in his research, makes comparisons and contrasts between his work and the analyses carried out in the United States, such as Belkaoui and Belkaoui, 1976, Busby and Leighty, 1993, Cornelius et al, 1996, Kerin et al, 1979, Lewis and Neville 1995, Sullivan and O’Conner 1988, Wagner and Banos,1973; and, one of his deductions is that in the US, although there was a considerable increase in representing more women in professional life and as leaders, the stereotypes representing women in advertisements were still predominant until the mid-1990s (Yılmaz, 145). In this research, the datum and the comments were classified as in such divisions; what type of product, what the role of women in the ad is, hair of the women, what the women are doing, whom the women are with, the clothes women are in. In conclusion, it is asserted that it was not until the 1990s that there was a working, independent portrayal of women in the advertisements. In ‘60s and ‘70s, women promote the product as its user—in 60s the illustrated advertisements were popular whereas with the 70s modern techniques were being used. In 80s, the product range was significantly grown with advertisements of household electrical appliances, private banks, etc. However, according to the study, during these 30 years women were broadly took place in the advertisements as an inactive model (mannequin) who was merely standing besides the product (or in some cases, in the bank, etc.) another interesting fact that the only female ‘continuity character’ used in advertisements, which is a very commonly-used method to increase brand recognition was the Ayşe Teyze (Aunt Ayşe) who would carry a bleach in her purse all the time, as opposed to male figures of private industries and banks. Interestingly enough, other brands of detergents and bleaches used male figures that were muscular, strong men (or super-men) helping women to gain strength by using their brand. The advertisements of 1990s and 2000s are not included in this research, yet the only advertisement that does not show a woman in the kitchen, or struggling with dishes, laundry, children, etc involved Yildiz Kenter, a famous theater actor, at a gas station, implying a woman driving and buying her gas on her own (Yılmaz, 155).

Coming back to the USA, to make a comparison of participation of females to politics and employment rates, concerning the education they receive with data belonging to other countries, I will make use of a website which is comprised of statistical data in as diverse as about 9 categories and 50 sub-categories for almost all of the countries all around the world, they collect their sources via cooperating with universities, UN organizations, public agencies and non-governmental organizations. Throughout the years from 1990 to 2007, percentage of female population, aged above 15, that has been employed during the given years, has almost not changed in the USA with an average percentage of 56%, whereas this number has gradually decreased from 32% to 21% in Turkey. We can see almost the same statistics for the percentage of female employees, age group 15-24. The USA has an unchanged graphic, whereas Turkey’s graph is declining this time from 36% to 19%. The literacy rate among adult females, aged over 15, is 99% in USA whereas it is 82% in Turkey (2007 data), which has gradually increased from 46% in 1975. If we look at the percentage of women in members of the parliament, it is 15.2% in the U.S., 4.2%in Turkey, and 45.3% in Sweden which is the highest number around the world.

According to Gender Equity Index (GEI) which was first introduced by the Social Watch in 2004 to measure gender inequities in different areas, Sweden is the number one country with an overall score of 88, with scoring 82.9 at Empowerment, 83.8 at Economic Activity, and 96.3 at Education. The United States ranked 25th on the list with an overall score of 74, though it has one of the highest numbers regarding Education score with 97. Turkey stands a low rank (140th) with an overall score of 46; and its only promising score is 85.3 at Education score.

Regarding the equal representation in parliament, aiming the next Turkish elections to be held in June 12, there has been a campaign, a cooperative work of several NPOs, female artists, actors and celebrities, calling out to the political parties to run female candidates. Under current circumstances, AKP (the ruling party) has 78 female candidates (14.2% of their total candidates), CHP (main opposition party) has 109 (20%) and MHP has 68 (12.4%). And BDP (Kurdish Nationalist Party) declared that they are supporting 13 independent female candidates as the political party cannot run in elections. KA-DER (Association for the Support and Training of Women Candidates) has recently held a press conference and indicated their dissatisfaction with the number of female candidates, as the total number of member of the parliaments is 550, they demand there should be at least 270 women in the National Assembly. The current situation, whereas, implies there could be only at around 100 female MPs at best. Another hot topic is that women’s associations blame ruling and opposing parties for they do not have any women candidates with head-scarf. They believe this is a direct interference to civil and political rights.

In conclusion, I have aspired to give a quick summary of the gender inequities and sex discrimination with facts and examples from the U.S and Turkey from the perspective of both a Turkish young female and a foreigner follower of American culture. After millenniums and centuries, we have been discussing hot topics that once were taboo; however, it seems that we have not been able to resolve one very prominent challenge in our social and private lives. I believe there can be no perfect society without perfect equality in all aspects of the society and equal rights and opportunities given to people of all genders/sexes.

Although the story takes places over a brief period; the last two days of the main character’s life, he put the meaning in his life in that period. That is why the title is “The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber”.

The marriage between Francis and Margot is not one of faithfulness and love but one filled with distrust and worry. Details and clues show us that there are mainly two problems in their marriage; her betrayal and his lack of self-confidence. His lack of self-confidence gave her all the courage in their relationship and is a major contributing factor in her betrayal. Their relationship is selfish ; he wants her beauty while Margot desires his wealth. Hemingway gives the reader the impression that Francis is not necessarily an attractive man nor is he good with the ladies, but he is definitely rich. Margot, on the other hand, has one great advantage, her beauty. Therefore, Margot was too beautiful to be divorced and Francis was too rich to be left. This situation left not much choice to Margot. That’s why she was so keen on hunting expedition in Africa where danger waits every newcomer. An accident or a chance to kill her husband was very likely to happen. All she desired was a manly husband with money. Francis was all aware of her feelings that the next time to prove his masculinity,instead of running from danger, he would pursue it. The buffalo hunt gives him a newfound of happiness and wealth. She takes it as a threat. Consequently, unfortunately for Francis, the moment he gets ready to make the last shot to kill the buffalo, Margot raises her own gun and kills him! She didn’t hesitate to shoot him because she was afraid that he would run away like he did before or he would be victorious and become even bolder so that with his newlygained confidence, he would leave her. Actually by killing him instead of killing the animal, she did him a favor, otherwise it would increase his shame!

Finally, Margot’s final action is critical and hard to determine any simple explanation but there’s one thing clear: Francis’s death was not a tradegy at all, but a victory because he died in the act of affirming himself.